The handbook is organized into nine chapters, a glossary, and ten appendixes of additional resources. Chapter one provides a general overview of the asset recovery process and legal avenues for recovery, along with practical case examples. Chapter two presents a host of strategic considerations for developing and managing an asset recovery case, including gathering initial sources of facts and information, assembling a team, and establishing a relationship with foreign counterparts for international cooperation. Chapter three introduces the techniques that practitioners may use to trace assets and analyze financial data, as well as to secure reliable and admissible evidence for asset confiscation cases. The provisional measures and planning necessary to secure the assets prior to confiscation are discussed in chapter four; and chapter five introduces some of the management issues that practitioners will need to consider during this phase. Confiscation systems are the focus of chapter six, including a review of the different systems and how they operate and the procedural enhancements that are available in some jurisdictions. On the issue of international cooperation...

This Public Expenditure Review (PER) examines the overall fiscal discipline, which after targeting, and achieving recurrent surpluses by FY99, the targets for FY01 were set to provide scope for financing of priority sector activities under the Poverty Reduction Strategy, and accommodate increased foreign inflows in the form of program grants. However, recurrent deficits in FY01, and, the target for FY02, delivered a recurrent deficit of 2.5 percent of GDP. Nonetheless, these deficits are within the sustainability thresholds indicated by recent analyses of fiscal, and debt sustainability, and remain compatible with continued macroeconomic stability. The report also looks at the introduction of cash flow planning, and the innovation introduced with the public finance act, to then analyze the government resources, and expenditures, which overall, expenditures on the key priority areas increased, exceeding the additional debt relief available through the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. The report subsequently focuses on two main sources of fiscal risks...

The Bank assessed the Mauritius insolvency and creditor rights systems pursuant to a joint IMF-World Bank initiative to develop reports on the observance of standards and codes ("ROSC"), based on the Bank Principles and Guidelines for Effective Insolvency and Creditor Rights Systems during 2002. The assessment team interviewed a cross section of country stakeholders regarding the effectiveness of the legal infrastructure, and its implementation supporting debtor-creditor relationships, corporate insolvency and credit risk management and resolution practices. Conclusions in this assessment are based largely on a review of applicable legislation and information gathered through interviews conducted by the staff team, and other inputs provided by the Steering Committee on Insolvency and Creditor Rights set up by the Government of Mauritius in January 2003. In addition, five commercial banks provided responses pertaining to credit risk management and corporate recovery practices with respect to distressed assets. Policy recommendations include: creditors rights and enforcement areas...

Corporate governance deals with the ways in which the rights of outside suppliers of equity finance to corporations are protected and receive a fair return. Good practices reduce the risk of expropriation of outsiders by insiders and thus the cost of capital for issuers. The authors review the experience of the preparation of 15 corporate governance country assessments across five continents. The assessments have been prepared under the umbrella of the joint World Bank/IMF initiative of the "Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes" (ROSCs). The assessments focus on the rights of shareholders, the equitable treatment of shareholders, the role of stakeholders, disclosure and transparency, and the duties of the board of listed companies, and use the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance as benchmark. The authors give an overview of the actual and potential contribution of the assessments to policy dialogue, diagnostic and strategic work, lending and non-lending operations, and technical assistance and capacity...

The World Bank assessed the insolvency and creditor or debtor regimes (ICR) of Moldova pursuant to the joint international monetary fund (IMF) and World Bank initiative on the observance of standards and codes (ROSC). The Moldovan authorities have made remarkable progress over the last decade in taking on board a broad range of reform related to the commercial law regime, including the laws pertaining to creditor protection and insolvency. Loans are often over collateralized, reducing available credit and increasing the incentives for lenders to rely primarily on their collateral for repayment rather than to support restructuring efforts. The secured transactions regime requires improvement, importantly regarding the facilitation of important credit instruments over category of assets. The rules aimed at encouraging good corporate behavior at times of financial distress may be improved and obstacles on insolvency filing by creditors removed to ensure timely filing of insolvency proceedings. There are also certain risks to creditor rights...

The introduction of new much higher minimum capital requirements and the subsequent banking sector consolidation created a platform for Nigerian banks to expand within the region and more globally. After capitalization, several Nigerian banks found themselves with large amounts of capital while there was an environment of uncertainty about the situation in Nigeria in the aftermath of the 2009 Nigerian banking crisis. This together with new market expansion opportunities gave an impulse to a number of Nigerian banks to quickly expand within West and Central Africa, as well as more globally. The global crisis itself provided Nigerian banks with opportunities to expand within Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). With Nigerian banks' presence in many countries in the region and more globally, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) needed to overhaul its traditional supervisory practices and embark on rigorous supervision of its banks on a consolidated basis taking into account all their subsidiaries and branches abroad-a task with which even advanced supervisors still struggle. This note focuses on issues of cross-border coordination and provides policy recommendations that could be taken into consideration by the CBN. Section two provides a brief description of the expansion and cross-border liquidity flows of some Nigerian banks. Section three focuses on issues related to supervisory cross-border coordination. Section four offers some recommendations. Several Nigerian banks have expanded abroad...

This study provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of the questions of out-of-court debt restructuring from a policy-oriented perspective. The starting point of the analysis is given by the World Bank principles for effective insolvency and creditor rights systems. The study offers an overview of out-of-court restructuring, which is not seen as fundamentally opposed to formal insolvency procedures. Actually, the study contemplates different restructuring techniques as forming a continuum to the treatment of financial difficulties. The study discusses the advantages and disadvantages of all the debt restructuring techniques, and concludes, in this regard, that a legal system may contain a number of options a menu that can cover different sets of circumstances. In the end, the law may offer a toolbox with very different instruments that the parties may use depending on the specific facts of the case. The study also provides a checklist that can be used to examine the features of a legal system that bear a direct influence on debt restructuring activities.

Corruption and thefts of public assets harm a diffuse set of victims, weakens confidence in public institutions, damages the private investment climate, and threatens the foundations of the society as a whole. In developing countries with scarce public resources, the cost of corruption is an impediment to development: developing countries lose between US$20 to US$40 billion each year through bribery, misappropriation of funds, and other corrupt practices. Corruption is by no means a "victimless crime." This study aims to explore the standing of States and Government entities as victims and the possible recourse to private actions to redress public wrongs. States and Government entities may act as private litigants and bring civil suits to recover assets lost to corruption. The goal of this work is to promote knowledge and understanding as well as to increase the use of civil remedies and private lawsuits to recover stolen assets in the context of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) offences. The UNCAC...